before someone asked if they can use a 9mm hand gun or 380, 38 special etc, for hunting larger game there's a good reason I suggest the 158 grain 357 mag with at least a 6" barrel,is a reasonable minimum,EXPERIENCE! AS an example, I would not think a 9mm ,especially if loaded with typical walmart ammo would work well, based on my experience with a friend carlos using a 9mm hi-power on a larger hog, that probably weighed 270 lbs.Carlos, Allan and I walked up a swamp buggy track in the glades one day and saw a huge hog lying in the muddy tracks,in the saw grass. my friend assumed the tracked buggy had run over that hog and walked up to within about 10-11 feet from where the hog, was, the darn hog must of been resting and partly deaf, lying in the buggy track, it jumped up to face him, carlos drew his 9mm loaded with 9mm hollow points and started blasting the hog,he hit it at least 7-8 times out of the 13 shot magazine,(bad shot placement but he emptied the pistol) it knocked carlos down and probably would have done a great deal more damage if Allan had not shot it in the head from about 3 feet with a 12 ga loaded with buckshot.carlos got cuts on both legs while trying to kick the hog off him, requiring dozens of stitches and they got infected keeping him out of work for 3 weeksWe had to rush carlos to the local emergency room !I was carrying in a tree stand and the whole deal from the time the hog jumped up until Allan dropped it probably lasted 7 seconds.we spent the rest of the day getting carlos to the emergency room and waiting to find out how bad he was.

please understand , even a properly placed shot from a 22lr can kill a deer, but that hardly makes it an effective DEER RIFLE CALIBERwhen your selecting a revolver cartridge you should select one that will work under less than ideal conditions, less than ideal angles and at reasonable ranges

IF YOU CAN,T SMOKE THE TIRES AT WILL,FROM A 60 MPH ROLLING START YOUR ENGINE NEEDS MORE WORK!!"!IF YOU CAN , YOU NEED BETTER TIRES AND YOUR SUSPENSION NEEDS MORE WORK!!

allan shot it from about 3 feet away with his shotgun,as the hog tried too back off, and get a better angle of attack, avoiding carlos.s legs after getting kicked in the face , as the hog tried to get into carlos again.most times hogs run, but every once in awhile you get one that wants to fight if really pissed off and injured

Idaho1945 wrote:Here we go again using energy as the deciding factor for killing a deer. While the 357 will work (I've done it) its really on the minimum side for deer, but again it will work. Moving up to the big three, 41, 44 & 45 they are easily able to take deer with quality hits & will almost always exit if using good ammo. Don't look for the "knock down" effect of riles, you won't usually see it, but the sixgun is deadly in the hands of good shooters. You need placement & penetration & you can punch your tag! If you need more horsepowder you can move up to the 454, 460 or the mighty 500, along with additional recoil. Shoot what you can handle & the sixgun is a great hunting weapon.

Dick

the above,basically covered the subject rather well.I had used both a 8 3/8" 357 mag and 8 3/8"44 mag revolver for several decades before the 445 DWSM came out , I bought one, with a 10" barrel and its an excellent pistol, I also bought a 454 cassul with a 8" barrel a few years later, both have significantly more power than the 44 mag, which pushes a lee 310 grain to about 1250 fps in my 10" S&W revolver, each can push a similar weight bullet at least 300 fps faster, but the net result did not change, a good hit with any of the 44-45 caliber revolvers kills deer and hogs very effectively but you seldom get the instant kills that a 308 win or 270 win provide, with similar hits, this does not make them less fatal, to the game, but it may take a different mind set, hand gun hunting is a bit more like archery in that you normally need to get into under 50-70 yards for quick easy shots and game tends to run, a short distance then drop.theres no real disadvantage or advantage in using the larger more powerful calibers other than increased recoil and noise and the pistols are larger and heavier, but in exchange you get a bit flatter trajectory, and at least on paper more damage on target, but because even a 44 mag loaded to 1250 fps punches clean thru deer and hogs and produces a very dependable fatal wound Ive found little advantage in the larger and more powerful calibers

IF YOU CAN,T SMOKE THE TIRES AT WILL,FROM A 60 MPH ROLLING START YOUR ENGINE NEEDS MORE WORK!!"!IF YOU CAN , YOU NEED BETTER TIRES AND YOUR SUSPENSION NEEDS MORE WORK!!